Ammonia-fuel venture seeks investors

The
developers of a process to inexpensively manufacture ammonia, virtually
on demand, as an eventual carbon-emission-free vehicle fuel have walked
their process far enough along to begin seeking investors.

Tim
Maxwell, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, speaks during a press
conference on Thursday at Reese Center. Tech is developing technologies
with ammonia that can lead to self sufficient fuel and fertilizer
production. (Zach Long)

The developers of a process to inexpensively manufacture ammonia,
virtually on demand, as an eventual carbon-emission-free vehicle fuel
have walked their process far enough along to begin seeking investors.

And that’s only one part of an overall technology train envisioned by
SilverEagles Energy using research at Texas Tech’s Advanced Vehicle
Engineering Laboratory.

Researchers went public with the process Thursday afternoon with a
briefing on the potential — a line of applications, moving from an
inexpensive replacement for acetylene gas in welding uses, to using
ammonia in fuel blending now, to high-efficiency engines with far fewer
moving parts, to a machine that would produce nitric acid — used in
manufacturing ammonium nitrate for farm fertilizer use.

Actually, ammonia isn’t really the fuel, said Cyd Fleming-Chase, the
managing member of the corporation. Instead it’s a non-flammable way to
store and deliver hydrogen — which is highly combustible — by mixing it
with nitrogen, which doesn’t burn.

And, says consulting engineer John Fleming, because there’s no
carbon involved in using ammonia as a combustible fuel, exhaust
hydrocarbons would be non-existent.

Tim Maxwell, a mechanical engineering professor at Texas Tech and a
member of the partnership, said the absence of carbons in the fuel also
would mean no problems with sooty or other combustion deposits building
up on engine intake or exhaust valves.

Maxwell added that because it runs at lower temperatures than
gasoline engines, an ammonia-fueled engine would mean little or no
production of the other pollutant from vehicle exhaust, oxides of
nitrogen, also known as NOX.

An ammonia engine’s emissions would be nitrogen and water vapor, Maxwell said.

Company officials Fleming, Maxwell, Fleming-Chase and James Anderson
said the company’s goal is to attract local investment — about $8
million — for the venture.

Even as they seek funding, the company already has been in talks with
other local companies that could manufacture components for the various
products in the technology train, which would include a generator that
uses electricity to extract hydrogen gas from water.

That machine, the called the Hydrogen, is the key first step toward
making the string of ideas fall into place, said Fleming, a New
Zealand-born engineer who holds several patents for developing
cleaner-burning home heating appliances.

The next step would be production of the ammonia machine, which would
combine the Hydrogen’s technology with a way to extract nitrogen from
the air.

The ammonia machine could be packaged in a shipping-container-size box and placed at a gas station or other site.

Fleming said the idea of ammonia as fuel isn’t new, adding wryly, “we
applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation, and they
turned us down because ‘it was not new science.”

Now, most ammonia is synthesized by the Haber process, named for
German scientist Fritz Haber, who developed the process in 1910. It was
used for such things as bus fuel in Europe during World War II.

Ammonia could be used now, instead of ethanol, as an “A-10 — “10
percent” — fuel additive in cars and trucks with no change at all in gas
tanks or engines, said Fleming adding flexfuel vehicles could run now
on an A-85 fuel blend if a different gas tank were used.

Ammonia-powered engines would represent a radical departure from
what’s under the hood of today’s vehicles. The engine would generate
electricity to be sent to the wheels, similar to the propulsion system
in today’s hybrids and electric vehicles, rather than using a drivetrain
and transmission.

Because the piston process creates its own electricity, there would
be no need for an alternator to power lights and other items. Engines
would be air-cooled, eliminating the radiator, as well, Maxwell said.

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Building the deal

John
Fleming, consulting engineer with SilverEagles Energy, said some
potential investors have been surprised at the depth of detail in the
plan, which includes:

■
A business plan to build and take to market the Electrogen, a machine
that uses electricity to separate hydrogen gas from water molecules on
an on-demand basis. The device would be marketed toward welders and
other companies that now use oxyacetelyine as a flammable gas.

■
An “ammonia machine,” which is an electric-powered device about the
size of a shipping container that combines the Electrogen’s hydrogen
product with nitrogen extracted from the air to make liquid ammonia, at a
cost of about 80 cents a gallon, on site. Such a container has military
fuel uses, and could also be installed at gas stations for fuel
blending. It’s an alternative to shipping ammonia, especially in the
United States, the world’s largest importer of ammonia according to
TradeData International, a global trade analysis service based in
Australia.

■ Research into fuel
blends that could be used in current gasoline or Diesel engines while
manufacturers develop ammonia-powered cars.

■ High-efficiency engines being designed and soon to be tested in cars at Tech’s vehicle laboratory.

Patents
already secured in the U.S. and globally for much of the technology to
be developed in connection with the various aspects of the “technology
train.”